T.N. government to appeal against Ponmudy’s acquittal in ₹28.37-crore red sand quarrying case, ED tells Madras HC

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Former Minister K. Ponmudy. | Photo Credit: M. VEDHAN

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has informed the Madras High Court that the Tamil Nadu government would be filing an appeal against the acquittal of former DMK Minister K. Ponmudy, his son Gowtham Sigamani, and five others from a ₹28.37-crore red sand quarrying case.

Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan, ED Special Public Prosecutor P. Sidharthan said the State government had written to the Central agency expressing its decision to go on appeal against the acquittal.

The judges directed the SPP to file a detailed counter affidavit within two weeks to a batch of writ petitions filed by the acquitted individuals to quash the proceedings initiated by the ED against them under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 on the basis of the red sand quarrying case.

In his plea, Mr. Ponmudy said the Villupuram District Crime Branch police had registered a First Information Report (FIR) against him, his son and others on September 23, 2012. The case was booked under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the law pertaining to mines and minerals.

The charge against them was that when Mr. Ponmudy served as Minister for Mines and Minerals between 2007 and 2011, he had entered into a criminal conspiracy and awarded licences to his son, the latter’s friend, Mr. Sigamani’s brother-in-law and others for quarrying red sand.

The charge sheet claimed the licencees had quarried red sand over and above the permitted quantity, without paying seignorage fees to the State government. Thereby, they had caused a loss of ₹28.37 crore to the public exchequer and the act had led to a corresponding wrongful gain for them.

However, after a full fledged trial, the Villupuram Principal District and Sessions Court on April 2, 2026 acquitted all seven of them, holding the prosecution had failed to establish any nexus between the grant of quarry lease and alleged illegal gain or conspiracy.

The trial court also observed the prosecution had failed to prove either the charge of conspiracy or abuse of official position against the former Minister. It also concluded that the alleged revenue loss figures were speculative, unsupported by primary data, Mr. Ponmudy told the High Court.

Now that all the seven accused had been acquitted from the predicate offence, nothing would survive for the ED to continue prosecution for the charge of money laundering connected to that case, he said and urged the High Court to quash the PMLA proceedings pending before a sessions court in Chennai.

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